On Tue, 01 Jul 1997 18:29:53 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>SJ>Johnson on a recent tape predicted that Darwinism will collapse in a
>few years, just like communism did when those who ran the system lost
>their faith.
PM>Well, Johnson appears to be wrong on at least one count. Communism
>has hardly collapsed. Perhaps you mean to say the Soviet Empire collapsed ?
>But the prediction that Darwinism will collapse in a few years means that
>Johnson in a few years will have to address the accuracy of his prediction.
It is me who was "wrong". Johnson actually did say "the Soviet
Union":
"These are exciting times. When I finished the Epilogue to Darwin on
Trial in 1993, I compared evolutionary naturalism to a great
battleship afloat on the Ocean of Reality. The ship's sides are
heavily armored with philosophical and legal barriers to criticism,
and its decks are stacked with 16-inch rhetorical guns to intimidate
would-be attackers. In appearance, it is as impregnable as the
Soviet Union seemed a few years ago. But the ship has sprung a
metaphysical leak, and that leak widens as more and more people
understand it and draw attention to the conflict between empirical
science and materialist philosophy. The more perceptive of the
ship's officers know that the ship is doomed if the leak cannot be
plugged. The struggle to save the ship will go on for a while, and
meanwhile there will even be academic wine- and-cheese parties on the
deck. In the end, the ship's great firepower and ponderous armor
will only help drag it to the bottom. Reality will win." (Johnson
P.E., "How to Sink a Battleship: A call to separate materialist
philosophy from empirical science", 1996 Mere Creation conference.
http://www.origins.org/real/ri9602/johnson.html)
And Darwinism is collapsing right now before our very eyes. As I have
recently pointed out, in the New York Review of Books, read by the
intellectual elite of America, Gould has labelled three leading classical
Neo-Darwinists, Dennett, Dawkins and Maynard Smith, as "Darwinist
Fundamentalists". See:
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?1997061234F
and
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?1997062647F
This is by far the most damaging thing that any leading evolutionist
has said about another, and it will not be able papered over. This
is a split in Darwinism the like of which has never been seen. Of
course the Neo-Darwinists will not take this lying down. We can
expect to see more damaging comments from Dennett, Dawkins and
Maynard Smith about Gould and his position. The judges, politicians
and other movers and shakers who read the New York Times cannot fail
to realise that if the world's leading evolutionists cannot agree on
the very fundamentals of evolution, then maybe what they have been
claiming all along as "fact" is not as assured as they make out and
other non-evolutionist voices deserve a fair hearing.
>SJ>A highly significant thing is starting to happen - leading Darwinist
>are starting to air their dirty linen in public. Darwinist
>high-priests Dawkins and Dennett have been criticising Gould in
>public for being a non-adaptationist `heretic', but has recently
>started to fight back.
PM>So there is disagreement among scientists. To consider this dirty
>linen indicates that you do not understand that scientific
>disagreement is the life of a scientist and the life of science.
>Without people doubting science, science will cease to exist.
Pim, "scientific disagreement" is when scientists promote their own
theories and criticise the theories of others in scientfic journals.
When the leader of one school of evolutionists calls the leaders of
the other school "fundamentalists" publicly in the leading non-
scientific magazine which is read by the intellectual elite in
America, then this goes far beyond normal "scientific disagreement".
But I am quite happy that you don't recognise the change it for what
it is. I hope other evolutionists don't either - that will make it
easier for the coalition of non-evolutionists to gain a hearing!
>SJ>Gould sounds almost like a creationist in admitting "an astonishing
>`conservation'" of basic pathways of development among phyla:
PM>Of course to suggest that Ghould 'sounds like a creationist' is
>far from the reality of the matter now isn't it Steve?
I said that "Gould sounds *almost* like a creationist", not that
he actually "sounds like a creationist". I suggest you pay more
attention to what I say, and less to what you think I say.
PM>Your error appears to lie in the assumption that classical darwinism
>and creationism are the only choices.
My "assumption" is that in the end "the only choice" is between the
`blind watchmaker' ("classical darwinism") and "creation" by an
Intelligent Designer. In the end, no theory of naturalistic evolution
can get away from the step-by-step buildup of complexity that Dawkins
rightly asserts is at the "very heart of the evolution theory":
"It is the contention of the Darwinian world-view that both these
provisos are met, and that slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection
is the ultimate explanation for our existence. If there are versions of
the evolution theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the central
role of natural selection, they may be true in particular cases. But
they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very heart of the
evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve astronomical
improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent miracle." (Dawkins
R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, p318)
This is why the abandonment of "classical darwinism" (ie. the `blind
watchmaker) in the light of the empirical evidence, is so
significant. Because evolution is, as Midgley pointed out, "the
creation myth of our age":
"With respect to `the religion of Evolution,' Mary Midgley states:
`And today, a surprising number of the elements which used to
belong to traditional religion have regrouped themselves under the
heading of science, mainly around the concept of evolution....
Evolution is the creation myth of our age.' " (Midgley M., in "The
Religion of Evolution in Darwinism and Divinity", 1985, p154, in
Templeton J.M, ed., "Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the
Creator", 1994, p158)
rejection or weakening of the `blind watchmaker', will leave an
explanatory vacuum that will enable for Intelligent Design to
reassert itself.
PM>But of course this is incorrect. The gradualism versus punk eek
>hardly mean death to Darwinism.
I didn't say that it would "mean death to Darwinism". But it would
weaken their cultural power, which enables a tiny minority (all polls
consistently reveal that about 90% believe in a Creator and only
about 9% believe in fully naturalistic evolution) to maintain their
creation story while preventing the main alternative (Intelligent
Design by a supernatural Creator), from obtaining a fair hearing:
"By skilful manipulation of categories and definitions, the Darwinists
have established philosophical naturalism as educational orthodoxy in
a nation in which the overwhelming majority of people express some
form of theistic belief inconsistent with naturalism. According to a
1982 Gallup poll aimed at measuring nationwide opinion, 44 percent
of respondents agreed with the statement that "God created man
pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000
years." That would seem to mark those respondents as creationists in
a relatively narrow sense. Another 38 percent accepted evolution as a
process guided by God. Only 9 percent identified themselves as
believers in a naturalistic evolutionary process not guided by God.
The philosophy of the 9 percent is now to be taught in the schools as
unchallengeable truth." (Johnson P.E. "Evolution as Dogma: The
Establishment of Naturalism", 1990, p10)
PM>Also Ghould has marveled at the many good examples of transitional
fossils.
It depends on what you mean by "transitional fossils". If you mean
direct parent-child species relationships, there are *no* "transitional
fossils":
"Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict
when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist
myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should
at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism
was derived.' I will lay it on the line-there is not one such fossil for
which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that
statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil
record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes,
perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question." (Patterson
C., letter 10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D., "Darwin's Enigma",
1988, p89)
If you mean by "transitional fossils" cousin-nephew species
relationships, Gould has said they are extremely rare:
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as
the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our
textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest
is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."
(Gould S.J., "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change", "The Panda's
Thumb", 1980, pp150-151)
This "extreme rarity" of "transitional fossils" is consistent with
a directed evolution (ie. progressive creation) and inconsistent
with undirected, naturalistic evolution:
"Each of those Cambrian animals contained a variety of immensely
complicated organ systems. How can such innovations appear except
by the gradual accumulation of micromutations, unless there was
some supernatural intervention? It is not only that the Darwinian
theory requires a very gradual line of descent from each Cambrian
animal group back to its hypothetical single-celled ancestor. Because
Darwinian evolution is a purposeless, chance-driven process, which
would not proceed directly from a starting point to a destination,
there should also be thick bushes of side branches in each line. As
Darwin himself put it, if Darwinism is true the Precambrian world
must have "swarmed with living creatures" many of which were
ancestral to the Cambrian animals. If he really rejects the artifact
theory of the Precambrian fossil record, Gould also rejects the
Darwinian theory of evolution." (Johnson P.E., in Buell J. & Hearn
V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?", 1994, pp13-14)
PM>So perhaps your suggestion that Ghould almost sounds like a
>creationist is wishful thinking?
No. Gould is an evolutionist. But because he is trying to be faithful
to the empirical evidence he will inevitably "sound almost like a
creationist", because that's what the fossil record actually looks
like:
"If one assumes that a process of gradual, blind watchmaker
evolution produced the Cambrian phyla, then one has to assume also
that a universe of transitional species that once lived on the earth has
vanished mysteriously from the fossil record. Gould, a paleontologist
who refuses to treat the fossil record so cavalierly, can only declare
that the transitionals (or at least most of them) never existed and that
something called a "fast-transition filled the gap. Gould is faithful to
the observable evidence, where a blind watchmaker theorist is not,
but the price he has to pay is that he has only an empty term to
account for the complexity. When pressed on this point (as I have had
occasion to observe), he has no alternative but to retreat to blind
watchmaker evolution for as long as it takes to protect his home
base." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance", 1995, pp87-88)
What Johnson means by "as I have had occasion to observe" is revealed
on one of his tapes. He actually debated Gould in 1989 and when
Johnson pressed Gould for an evolutionary mechnanism to account for
the Cambrian phyla, Gould reverted to classical Neo-Darwinism, which
he had declared to be "effectively dead":
"I well remember how the synthetic theory beguiled me with its
unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960's.
Since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as a universal
description of evolution. The molecular assault came first, followed
quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox theories of speciation
and by challenges at the level of macroevolution itself. I have been
reluctant to admit it-since beguiling is often forever-but if Mayr's
characterization of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory,
as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as
textbook orthodoxy." (Gould S.J., "Is a new and general theory of
evolution emerging?", Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p120)
>SJ>Gould acknowledges that if Darwinists fight each other they will
>lose the main battle against the creationists:
>
>"...We will not win this most important of all battles if we descend
>to the same tactics of backbiting and anathematization that
>characterize our true opponents."
PM>I guess Ghould does look like a creationist after all then <g> ?
I did not say that "Gould" *was* a creationists, only that he
"sounds *almost* like a creationist". You really need to pay
attention to what I say, not what you want me to say. If you
continually don't deal with my arguments without distorting them into
something I didn't say, then it is evidence to me that you *can't*
deal with my arguments.
BTW you have spelled Gould's name wrong four times in the above, Pim.
Is it a mistake, or is there some significance in "Ghould"?
PM>I am impressed that Steve derives so much strength in pointing out
>disagreements among scientists rather than in his personal faith.
This is more than "disagreements among scientists". Scientists
disagree politely in *scientific journals*, not publicly excoriate
each other in leading non-scientific journals. Gould has publicaly
labelled in the New York Review of Books (one of the USA's leading
non- scientific journals read mainly by the intellectual elite) the
normal Neo-Darwinism that is taught in all the nation's school
textbooks,as "Darwinist Fundamentalism".
PM>Perhaps the end of Darwinism but certainly not the end of evolution
>and certainly not the victory of creationism.
I did not say it was "the victory of creationism", nor "the end of
evolution", but I am glad to see you concede it may be "the end of
Darwinism". However, I don't even say it is "the end of Darwinism".
I say it is the beginning of the end of "Darwinism" being able to
maintain a State monopoly of its creation story, by concealing from
the lay public the evidence against it, and by preventing alternatives
from gaining a fair hearing.
Regards.
Steve
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